Hypothetical
by Ukaisha
Summary: Quick Takouji oneshot. A simple question can open the door to a lot of hypothetical situations, and a simple reply can plant the seed that may make something that could be, into something that will be.


Disclaimer: The author takes no stake or claim on any characters mentioned.

A/N: Wrote this like two years ago, never uploaded it because I didn't really like it at the time. Hated the ending. Decided to upload it at random, since it was already done and I decided it wasn't like, brutally awful, and maybe someone might get some appreciation out of it.  
>Let me know.<p>

Hypothetical

Six children sat in a bedroom of the Kanbara residence, all occupied in one form of entertainment or another. The only girl, Izumi, was carefully applying her second coat of lavender nail polish, for the third time. In a room full of rowdy boys who would randomly decide to throw things at each other in addition to the affections of a very friendly shedding cat, it was not exactly the safest place to paint one's nails.

Junpei, the eldest, having gotten bored of watching Izumi paint her nails over and over again, had taken some time to investigate the contents of the bedroom, and after finding a jackpot of rare manga, he sat down to indulge in it. He also inconspicuously hid some of the manga that had obviously been read many times, knowing the owner of the bedroom would be frantically and hysterically searching for them in a few days time.

Kouichi was humoring Tomoki, the youngest, by playing Soul Caliber IV with him. The former had no experience with the game whatsoever, and the later had lived and breathed it for at least a hundred solid hours, so it was not exactly a fair fight either way. However, Tomoki desperately needed to play before he had to return the game, and Kouichi was a good sport who didn't mind losing, so there you are.

Kouji, who had yet to submit to any of the immature actions of his companions, was sitting in a bright red bean bag chair, hunched over reading some thick novel that none of the other children were familiar with; one that probably contained five hundred or so pages of very small print, no pictures, and nothing of vital interest hidden in its pages whatsoever. Kouji was engrossed in it.

Takuya, the last of the children, was hunched over Kouji's hair, and had been for about half an hour or so, amusing himself by twisting it into all sorts of embarrassingly girly styles with ribbons and hair ties, and then taking a picture of each one to make fun of later, and then possibly use as blackmail. He'd already sent one particularly embarrassing picture to another close circle of friends who had found it hysterical, and was determined to repeat the feat. Kouji seemed oblivious to his antics for some odd reason; while ordinarily he would have no patience for this kind of nonsense, Kouji allowed it for the longest time, and didn't seem to acknowledge at all. It sort of confused the rest of the children, but Kouji wasn't complaining, so neither were they.

It was about the time that Tomoki, as Siegfried, had beaten Kouichi, as Ivy, for the eleventh time that the youngest eventually spoke up and began a conversation, directed towards the member of the party perhaps least interested in conversation at that moment. It was this attempt at conversation that would eventually snowball into something a little graver than the original intention, and it all started with: "Kouji-san, why do you keep your hair long like a girl?"  
>Junpei looked up from his manga and Izumi stopped painting her nails mid-stroke, Takuya's hands froze before he could finish a braid, and Kouichi, who was not currently doing anything, gaped.<br>Kouji simply replied, "I like my hair at this length," and he continued reading, oblivious.

"No way, Kouji, spill it," Takuya demanded, and he let his friend's hair untwist. "Tell us why your hair is so long when you know you look like a girl."  
>"I don't look like a girl."<br>"You do, kinda," confessed Izumi, whose opinion seemed to seal the deal, with her being the only girl in the room. "Just your hair though…I mean, your face doesn't really look like a girl. But you know, if you looked from behind, you're pretty girly, Kouji.  
>"You'd have to be blind to mistake me for a girl."<br>"No, I've done it," admitted Junpei, who was scooting closer to the group to get in on the action. "One day when I met up with you at the train station and I first saw you, I wasn't sure if it was you because you looked like a girl."  
>"Then you're blind. Or stupid." He didn't say this with any particular emphasis or malice, and rather he seemed to be making his replies kind of offhand, like he still didn't really care one way or the other. This further confused the rest of the children; ordinarily, Kouji was extremely protective of his masculinity, which had been in doubt at times, and exceptionally protective of his hair. No one fucked with Minamoto's hair. Ever.<br>"Really, Kouji. Look at these pictures and tell me you do not look like a girl." And with that, Takuya shoved in his friend's face his cell phone, showing one of the many pictures he'd taken of his friend with his hair in girly styles. He did, in fact, look pretty girly, with his hair all delicately tied up in a ribbon like that. "I present the evidence! Kouji's hair is gay!" Now that Kouji had literally had this accusation shoved in his face, he was starting to get a little peeved.  
>"First I'm a girl, then I'm gay. Does that make me a lesbian? Well, in retrospect, that would make me straight, so…"<br>Kouichi, who did not really want to get on his brother's bad side but felt the need to contribute, hesitantly said: "Well, it's not that you're girly and gay or anything, Kouji. It's just…well, if you have pretty hair, people assume you want to be pretty, and a guy wanting to be pretty is pretty, well, gay."  
>"Obviously. The evidence is so clear; I have long hair, therefore I must be gay. Thank you everyone for telling me that; I'd have gone through all my life without making the connection."<p>

Tomoki, for whom the conversation had taken a turn he did not really intend, inconspicuously withdrew from it, and urged Kouichi, who did not really want to further offend his brother, to continue playing Soul Caliber. The two thus ignored the rest, but the flame was lit; the rest allowed the conversation to fester.  
>"Why exactly do you keep your hair long, Kouji? You must have some reason," Junpei insisted. "I mean, especially with all the comments you receive about it. You must have some reason you'd rather tolerate the comments than cut your hair. And don't act like they don't bother you," he threw in quickly before Kouji could object again. "Every time anyone comments about your hair you go off on them."<br>"I just like my hair at this length. It's not fair that women can have long or short hair, but I can only have short hair."  
>"So you're bringing gender equality into it?" Izumi asked sarcastically. "Want to start wearing a bra too? It's SO comfy."<br>Kouji simply scowled and did not respond, leading Takuya to pick up the rest:

"I think we were onto something with the gay thing. I think maybe you do just like feeling pretty because you're trying to attract other guys or something."  
>"You don't have to be embarrassed or anything," Junpei added quickly. "None of us really mind if you ARE gay. So if you're not saying it because you're worried about what we think or something…"<br>"Yeah, really, we're cool with it," Izumi readily agreed, forgetting entirely that she still had two fingers to finish painting. "If you are, we're your friends, and you can tell us anything, right?"

Kouji, who had by now completely stopped trying to read his novel, was trying to look cool and in control, not completely flustered at being assaulted from all angles about his currently-in-question-sexuality. "What the hell is this about? Where is all this gay support coming from?"  
>"Well, if you're gay…"<br>"Takuya, I'm not freaking gay. Jeeze. You're the one who came up with it all of a sudden."  
>"It fits though," he insisted. "You're not masculine at all. You just don't act like a guy in any way I can think of. And then add your hair and how you care so much about your appearance and everything, well, it's kind of obvious."<br>"I still haven't figured out how having long hair makes me gay. Or how giving a shit about my appearance is gay! Christ; stereotyping much?"  
>"Kouji," Takuya said very purposely, as though his next words were going to be so meaningful and so spot-on that there would simply be no room for error. "You tweeze your flippin' eyebrows."<br>"So I don't want a freaking BUSH of hair over each of my eyes! So sue me!"  
>Takuya masterfully finished with: "But you don't deny that you do a lot of feminine things; that's enough for me. What's more is that you keep denying it so passionately, and the fact that we actually got you worked up about it is enough." He looked terribly happy with himself and simultaneously, Kouji seemed to be steaming, considering all the things he could do to kill Takuya in a room full of witnesses without being caught.<p>

Kouichi, who was about to come to his brother's rescue by interjecting with specific points of his brother's masculinity, was saved from making this mistake by Tomoki, who already knew a lost cause when he saw one. Instead, he requested that his elder go with him to look up a walkthrough or a cheat guide on the internet on how to unlock the remaining achievements left in the game, as the Kanbara computer was downstairs and far away from the brawl. Initially, Kouichi did not warm up to the idea of leaving his brother in the middle of battle, and he stayed long enough to offer up another opinion:  
>"It's not really fair to accuse Kouji of being gay because of a few silly habits. Besides, one could argue that if vehemently denying being gay means you're gay, adamantly insisting that another is gay just means that you're gay as well."<br>And Tomoki, who realized before his elder that he had just introduced the theory that everyone in the room was gay, physically began dragging Kouichi out of the  
>room, unsuccessfully, until he abruptly realized his error, stood, and made his escape with Tomoki, leaving everyone else to bother with the implication.<p>

"Okay," Kouji said eventually. "Sure. Let's go with that. We're ALL gay, okay?"  
>"No!" Takuya whined in response. "No one ever said anyone else was gay! Just you!"<br>"Yeah; Takuya and I don't meet any of the criteria for being gay," Junpei began, and Takuya finished:  
>"But you practically wrote the list!"<br>"I love how I was left out of that," Izumi sniffled, pretending to be extremely hurt. Before anyone could intervene on her behalf and clear away any doubt that the only girl in their group was straight, she withdrew from the conversation entirely and resumed painting her nails, now applying a third coat of clear, sparkly nail polish.  
>Junpei, who didn't want to accidentally do anything else that would get him on Izumi's shit list, picked up his manga and resumed reading.<br>Takuya, who was still totally up for arguing but didn't want to go at it alone, settled with returning to his place behind Kouji, braiding his hair with baby blue ribbons. Sourly he said, "I'm still positive that you're gay.  
>Kouji, who had by this point picked up where he'd left off in his book, simply sighed, and replied: "Takuya, you're the one who's been styling my hair for an hour, and doing it pretty skillfully might I add. If that's not gay, I don't know what is."<p>

At first, there was dead silence. Takuya was just barely able to get out a blatant denial, and then Izumi, who was still a little sore at Takuya, said:  
>"Yeah, Takuya. And you're the one who pushed the point hardest, and now you're the one denying it."<br>"You don't really think…?" Junpei began, but Takuya interjected:  
>"I'm not the gay one! Seriously, when have I ever even acted gay ever?"<br>Izumi picked up where Junpei had left off. "I think Takuya's driving so hard at Kouji being gay because he wants him to admit that he is under pressure, then he can reveal unknown secret feelings for him."  
>"Oh, that is BULL-"<br>"Makes sense," Junpei agreed. "He just latched onto it and was hammering at it pretty hard. I think that's exactly why he wants Kouji to be gay; because he is."  
>"I freaking <em>hate <em>you people."  
>"Now you know how I feel."<br>"Ooh, maybe he has _romantic _feelings for him," Izumi cooed, suddenly sounding entirely serious and not in the slightest like she was joking.  
>"Oh, come on guys!"<br>"What would you say to him?" Junpei asked Kouji eagerly. "If Takuya had finagled a confession out of you and then he admitted his hidden feelings?"  
>"I HAVE no hidden feelings, Christ already…"<p>

Kouji had returned to more or less ignoring his companions, but when Junpei asked him this question, he stopped what he was reading, and stared at Takuya for a minute, brow furrowed, deep in thought. The other three didn't notice this reaction; Kouji was so infamous for expressing zero reaction that they'd ceased expecting any from him at all. He was about to reply when:  
>"Besides, Kouji doesn't feel that way either. Right Kouji?"<br>Despite Takuya's attempt to put the words in his mouth for him, Kouji replied, more to Junpei's question than Takuya's: "In the hypothetical circumstance of me actually having these kind of 'feelings' for Takuya, and if Takuya was actually capable of tricking me into admitting them, only to confess himself afterwards, I would probably be...okay."  
>The other three stared at him, silently, absorbing the magnitude of what he was saying. Izumi asked, "What do you mean, 'okay?'"<br>"Hypothetically if I liked Takuya, and hypothetically if he liked me, I think we could try to work out a relationship. I would probably be open to the possibility. I may not identify as gay, but there's always the potential that you can love someone of your own sex, I guess. Anything is possible."  
>Takuya finished for him, warily, "'Hypothetically,' right?"<br>"Hypothetically."  
>And Kouji returned to his book, paying no mind to any further reactions.<p>

Junpei looked at Izumi and Izumi looked at Junpei, and both of them looked at Takuya and Takuya looked at both of them, shrugging his shoulders in such a dramatic fashion that in the position they were in, they pushed Kouji slightly forward. Nobody exactly wanted to address what Kouji had just said. It was too complicated; not by how it was explained, but what the statement actually meant. Whether or not that had been a simple reply to a question, a careless conjecture, or a carefully presented confession.  
>And Kouji, the most important factor, seemed indifferent to the confusion. He was clearly done with the conversation altogether.<p>

Junpei decided to go catch up on what Tomoki and Kouichi were doing. Izumi realized that she'd laid down her freshly painted hand in cat fur, and she left to utilize the nail polish remover in the bathroom.  
>Kouji remained hunched over in the beanbag chair, apparently silently engrossed in his novel, and Takuya remained sitting behind him, motionless. He seemed quite at a loss for words; he seemed to have so much more to say, but none of it wanted to come out. And so they sat there, silently, for a long, grueling two minutes.<br>Unbeknownst to Takuya, Kouji was waiting for him to say something, or do something; just anything but sit behind him in silence. The wait for Takuya's response was distracting him from his novel. The moment needed closure.

Finally, when it became clear that Takuya wasn't going to come forth any time soon with any new additions, Kouji gently nudged him: "I don't care if you want to keep doing shit to my hair. If it amuses you, go ahead. It's not bothering me."  
>Takuya just nodded his head and grunted acknowledgement, and then continued slowly braiding the long black hair, delicately weaving it between his fingers. He seemed extremely focused on the task. Kouji returned to his book, and seemed extremely focused on that as well.<p>

All of this had been hypothetical, sure, but it had figuratively planted a seed. And as the general hypothesis goes, "If I plant a seed, then it shall grow."  
>Maybe all that was growing right now was resentment or confusion or embarrassment, but given enough time all of these things could disappear and make way for something else to grow. Kouji already seemed willing to accept this possibility; the question was if Takuya could accept it as well. If there was any possibility to begin with, that is.<p>

For now, Kouji read his novel, and Takuya continued his braiding, and they left it at that. They would have to wait a while before coming to a definite conclusion, but, for the moment, they concluded that reality was preferrable to conjecture.


End file.
